17 BLOCKS

By Davy ROTHBART

CINEPHIL - as SALES All rights, World

Documentary - Completed 2019

The film illuminates a nation's ongoing crisis through one family's story, just 17 Blocks from the US Capital Building.

Festivals
& Awards

Karlovy Vary IFF 2019
Documentary Films - Competition
Tribeca FF 2019
Best Editing
Zurich FF 2019
Special Mention
AFI DOCS 2019
    • Year of production
    • 2019
    • Genres
    • Documentary
    • Countries
    • USA
    • Languages
    • ENGLISH
    • Duration
    • 95 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Davy ROTHBART
    • Producer(s)
    • Alex TURTELTAUB, Michael B. CLARK, Marc TURTELTAUB, Rachel DENGIZ
    • Synopsis
    • The moment nine-year-old Emmanuel got his first video camera in 1999, he began to shoot a chronicle of the Sanford family, warts and all. Adolescence wasn’t easy for him and his siblings, growing up in a cramped home without a father, and raised by a loving mother who struggled unsuccessfully against her inner demons. Although located just seventeen blocks from the US Capitol, the proximity could not protect them from the poverty and violence of their neighborhood, nor from the unpredictability of the world. Ten years later, filmmaker and journalist Davy Rothbart uses raw documentary material, disarming in its authenticity, to create a moving drama about the power of family bonds and the brutality of everyday life in America.